


something biblical

by somethingdifferent



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1930s, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, F/M, Great Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-30 00:18:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3916060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>She did not know much about him, nothing but his name and the names of the people who she assumed must be his wife and child, nothing but the fact that her parents did not like or trust him. Nothing but the fact that he was their last, best chance at making it through the winter, when it came.</em> The summer that Sansa turns seventeen, Petyr Baelish buys half of her family's land.</p><p>[petyr/sansa; depression era au]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the seventh day

**Author's Note:**

> Guess who put off writing the next chapter for her other fic because she was writing this??? Me. I did.

 

 

 

Still, we keep on dreaming  
of that fifty year flood,  
of oceans of plasma  
and rivers of blood.

** ANDREW BIRD **

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**O N E**

_the seventh day_

 

**1.**

It was only on Sundays that they would venture from the farm, the six of them together, and walk along the dusty road up the one hill in sight to get to town. The church there was no grand affair, just a little wooden steeple in the dirt, in the weeds, that must have been painted white once upon a time, but Sansa always thought it was something spectacular - the choir, the preacher, the one broken stained glass window. It remained there, year after year, in spite of itself, just as they remained in spite of themselves, bearing the branches, the hail, the water that fell and gathered onto its roof.

Her mother always warned her about going down that road alone. Sansa wasn't meant to walk it by herself, lest she wander off into those fields just beyond their land to pick the wild violets that grew there.

All of them were always so afraid of it, that Sansa might go off on her own and dirty her one beautiful white dress, her two beautiful white shoes.

 

 

 

 

**2.**

Her father was angry about selling their land to an outsider, but she didn't know why until he said the name of the man who had bought it. The way he spit out the two words, hissing them to Mother after dinner, when Sansa and Arya and Bran and Rickon were meant to already be in bed but weren't. They listened at the door to the kitchen, Sansa pressing her ear against the wood and feeling it vibrate against her ear like a tickle every time Father got angry and made his voice louder, which was often.

"We're giving half our living," he raged, "half of what is rightfully ours, half of what should go to our children after we die, to _Petyr Baelish_? He'll be living just over there," Sansa imagined her father pointing through the window, toward the house at the edge of their field, "with Lysa and Robin, around you, around our children?"

"He's willing to pay well for it," her mother reasoned, calm despite the tremor of anger that ran through her voice, "more than what we could hope for from someone else. We need the money, Ned, we cannot keep ourselves alive off of what we have been making for the past year. We've already lost too much. We cannot make it through another winter without him, and we only have a few months left before it comes."

There was the sound of wood scratching roughly against wood - a chair being pushed back - and then Father spoke again, quieter this time, so that Arya, Bran, and Rickon had to crowd closer to the door to hear, leaning against Sansa as they listened.

"Do you think we can trust him?" he asked, the question almost hopeful.

There was barely a moment, not even enough to be considered a proper pause, before her mother replied, "No."

The kitchen was silent, the house was silent, no sound breaking the quiet save the wind rattling past the wooden slats of the house. Then, suddenly, they heard the same sound as before, of another chair being moved, and though Sansa wanted to listen the rest of the conversation, she ran with her brothers and sister back down the hall to bed, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping.

 

 

 

 

**3.**

Arya was the one chosen to keep watch for them, the buyer (as Father had taken to calling him) and his family. All day Saturday she waited at the end of the road up to their house, keeping her eyes focused on the curve at the end of the path where the truck would come rolling out from behind the trees, carrying the people who would be living and working just a little ways away from them.

They all went about their day as usual, Bran and Rickon because they were too young to truly care about what might happen, Mother and Father because they were pretending not to, and Sansa because there was little else to do aside from wait with Arya, who would try to rope her into doing something stupid that would most certainly lead to them getting in trouble.

As she went about weeding the garden behind the back porch, Sansa wished, for a moment, that Robb or Jon were there, that they hadn't both left to look for work in the city in the spring. Without them, she was the eldest, and she would be expected to carry the conversation at dinner tomorrow night should Mother and Father decide to stop speaking, which, considering how studiously they had avoided the topic of the buyer (Petyr Baelish, as Sansa had taken to calling him in her head) over the past week, was a very real possibility.

She did not know much about him, nothing but his name and the names of the people who she assumed must be his wife and child, nothing but the fact that her parents did not like or trust him. Nothing but the fact that he was their last, best chance at making it through the winter, when it came. It was still only June, but Sansa was nearly seventeen - old enough then to know about what could happen to them when it began to get colder if they had no money, no food.

It was nearly sunset when she heard Arya calling up the path to the house, her sister's voice mixing in with the noise of the crickets, the rustle of the wheat stalks as the breeze blew past the rows of them standing tall in the field. Sansa stood up, wiping her hands off on her dress to clean them quickly. As she looked down at her fingers, though, she could still see the splotchy grass stains, the dirt that rested in her nail beds, and she hoped that Mr. Baelish and his wife would not look too closely at her.

By the time she made it to the front of the house, everyone else was already there, watching the car with unease as it crawled along the road to the house at the farthest end of the field. It was not a truck, like Arya had predicted, but a sleek, black automobile, so out of place in the dust and weeds of her family's land that Sansa nearly laughed. But she couldn't, her breath caught somewhere between her chest and her throat.

She watched as the car passed by their house, moving to the other just beyond. She watched the woman step out of the car, her auburn hair visible even from a distance, followed quickly by a small boy no older than Bran. The woman paused just before heading up the path into the house, leaning back toward the car and muttering something, something that the wind couldn't carry back over to them, before she ducked her head into the window and kissed the driver.

The car pulled into the pathway up to the house and emerged a moment later, turned back in the other direction. It set off again down the road, faster this time, nearly knocking into Arya before she jumped back out of the way.

"Was that him?" she asked, sounding disappointed, and she looked up at Father as his eyes tracked the car until it disappeared behind the bend in the road, behind the trees. Bran and Rickon turned to him as well, waiting for a reply, but Sansa couldn't tear her eyes off of the empty place a few hundred feet away, the turn where the car had disappeared with the stranger still inside.

It was Mother who answered though, her voice hard even though her eyes were tired, almost sad.

"That's Petyr," she said.

 

 

 

 

**4.**

That night, she was woken by the sound of a car rattling down the road. Arya was still asleep, breathing deep and even in the bed across the room, but Sansa always slept more lightly than her sister. She could hear the car's engine, its tires rolling over on branches and stalks that were in its path. The clock on the nightstand told her that it was late, almost four in the morning, yet she was restless after that sound, even once it faded and stopped completely.

She tiptoed from her bed, her feet padding quiet on the cold, wood floor, to look out of the window. She couldn't say why she did so, wouldn't even be able to say it later, but there was one thought in her mind, just one, that she was certain would not leave her unless she did something about it: she needed to see that car again.

Drawing back the curtains, her skin brushing against the flowers she and her mother had embroidered together on the cloth, Sansa peered out at the other house. The swirls in the glass made the scene before her waver, the grass bending, the roof dipping in the middle, but she could see, easily enough, the elegant, expensive-looking car in all its shining glory. Just a few feet from it, there was a figure climbing the steps up to the house, a figure lit by the single, swinging light on the porch roof. Sansa could see the sharp, black lines of his suit, the shape of his hand as it reached for the door.

She shifted, moving closer to the window to see him more clearly, and underneath her feet, the floorboards creaked.

As if he had heard the sound, the man turned suddenly, looking straight at their house. Sansa nearly gasped, letting the curtain fall into place as she took a silent step back. Though she wasn't close to the window any longer, she could still see half of the figure, she could see as that half-body moved into the house without another glance in her direction.

Her hand flew to her chest, her fingers just touching her throat, where she could feel her pulse beating, loud and fast, below her skin. She let out the breath she didn't know she was holding, a hiss of air that was heard only by her.

 

 

 

 

**5.**

Though the doors were opened to the breeze, the church was still almost unbearable in the heat. Sansa loved the summer, but she hated the hot weather on Sundays. She tucked her hands into the roots of her hair, letting it lift off of her neck and fall back into place, and focused her eyes on the golden-haired boy sitting a few rows ahead of them, on the other side of the aisle.

What must the Lannisters think, seeing her like this, sweating, burning, her hair tangled and damp? Whenever she saw the mother, Cersei, she cooed at Sansa's beauty, and always said that a lovely, graceful girl like her would be absolutely _perfect_ for her son, Joffrey, so often that Sansa wondered, hoped, that in a year or two she might be married to him. Yet at the doors to the church, Cersei had curled her lip at Sansa's ragged appearance, had herded her son into the building without speaking to her.

She worried about it, the readings doing little to pull her out of her misery, but her musings came to a halt when, nearly fifteen minutes after the service had started, the minister suddenly stopped talking to look at the back of the church. Heads began turning, everyone looking for the source of the interruption, and Sansa followed suit.

The red-haired woman from the day before held her son by his shoulders, moving him forcibly into one of the pews at the back as she hissed something into his ear. Just behind her, Petyr Baelish moved with no urgency whatsoever, his wife presumably having used up the family's supply for the day. He seemed almost amused at the disruption they had caused by being late, and as the congregation watched, he smiled agreeably at the minister and waved his hand for the man to keep going.

His Sunday best, Sansa noticed, was very much the same as what she had seen him wearing when she saw him from her window.

After everyone seemed to settle a bit, the minister launched back into the service, picking up the rhythm as well as he could, but Sansa's mind drifted, not toward Joffrey or Cersei, this time, but toward the buyer. She turned her head to the side, flipping her heavy hair over her shoulder, and stole a glance at where he sat in the back row.

He was neat, she thought first, certainly in comparison to the other haggard-looking members of the congregation, his wife and child among them. Yet it was more than that, more than just the clean lines he cut against the run-down church and its run-down people, a silhouette that spoke of wealth none of them knew, or at least not anymore; there was something in his air that told her of his significance, the glint of distaste in his eyes as he looked out over the people sitting in the pews in front of him, the glint of coldness in his eyes as he smiled - smirked - at all of them.

There was no more doubt in her mind about why her mother did not believe this man could be trusted.

Before she was forced to suffer a repeat of the previous night and be met with his gaze, Sansa looked back toward the alter, joining in with the hymn that the choir led.

 

 

 

 

**6.**

It was at dinner that they discovered why Mr. Baelish bought the land.

"Sister," Lysa exclaimed upon entering the house, striding up to Catelyn Stark and giving her a quick hug, as if they had only been separated for days, not years. "It has been too long."

"It has," Mother said, her smile tight and uncertain as her eyes flickered between her sister, her brother-in-law, and her nephew, who was trying desperately to grab at the knick-knacks on the mantle over the fire. "You haven't even met my children."

Sansa was the only one who behaved appropriately, in her opinion, upon being introduced. Rickon had wandered off to the kitchen and began tugging at Father's shirt while Bran and Arya traded angry remarks, but Sansa had smiled at her new aunt and uncle, giving a shy tilt of her head.

Her mother had a sister, she thought, angry though her face betrayed no such emotion, and she hadn't even known. _What else had been kept from her?_

At the very least, her fear that she might have to fabricate conversation turned out to be unfounded, as whenever Mother or Father (Father especially) faltered on what to say, Lysa made up for the lull with stories about what she had been doing for the past few years.

The way she moved, something about her, made Sansa uneasy. Her voice trembled as she spoke, wavering wildly between octaves and in volume, and, as if all of her nerve endings were tied to her vocal cords, her hands would stutter and shake as she gestured. Sansa would have chalked it up to anxiety over the dinner, but the look in her bright eyes was almost frantic.

She was reminded, suddenly, of Lady's eyes, in the moments before her father had to put her down, and she nearly shuddered when Lysa grinned at her.

"And Sansa," her aunt said, shifting abruptly from singing her husband's praises in favor of focusing intently on her niece, "you must just love growing up in this beautiful place. I know that's why we decided to bring Robin out here." She smiled adoringly at her son, who had begun to bicker loudly with Rickon at the farther end of the table. "The two of us had such a wonderful childhood on my father's farm, we knew we'd always return. Didn't we, Petyr?"

"Always," he agreed, his tone calm and dry, so dissimilar from his wife that it was almost a shock. He reached for his glass as Lysa continued, his gaze flitting around the table at everyone sitting there, as if he were trying to memorize them.

"After my husband passed, God rest his soul," she was saying, still speaking only to Sansa, "I was so sure Robin and I would be pushed out onto the street. But my darling Petyr, my darling, came to our rescue."

"You could have always come to us," Mother interjected, her mouth tilting up in a pale copy of a smile. "We would have been glad to help."

Her sister ignored her. "And even though _all_ of the land went to Cat after my father's death, Petyr and I always knew we'd come back here. Didn't we, my darling?"

"I always knew," he repeated, and as he said it his gaze landed on Sansa, mirroring Lysa's attentions. Yet when his wife looked away, distracted by her son's sudden tears, he remained staring at her.

His gray eyes, so cool before, like metal, were suddenly different, were suddenly dark and heated, and Sansa wondered if maybe they shouldn't be called simply gray after all, they were nearly green in the yellow light.

She was frozen in the same manner as a deer looking down the barrel of a hunting rifle, but it was only another moment before he glanced away to laugh at a joke Lysa had attempted. After another second, Sansa regained her bearings, imitating the laughter that surrounded the table, all of it pitched high and false.

Petyr's eyes, she noticed as she watched him carry on the conversation so amiably, were cold once again.

 

 

 

 

**7.**

She couldn't fall asleep. Every time she tried she could see it again, could see him again, his eyes boring into hers, his eyes burning, burning. She wracked her mind, in vain, for another image - golden hair, blue irises, calloused fingers - but all that came to her was the streak of silver at his temple, his wide, overwhelming pupils, the raised veins under the smooth skin of his hands.

She could hear the sounds of the land humming around her, the chirp of crickets, the whistle of the wind through the trees, her sister's breathing, and for hours there was nothing else to break the quiet. But just before midnight, there was the now familiar noise of a car engine roaring into life, then the slow track of tires across the ground. Sansa listened, not daring to move an inch, as if somehow he would know.

She wondered, vaguely, if anyone else could hear it.

 

 

 

 


	2. the tree

 

 

 

Now the serpent was more crafty than any  
of the wild animals the LORD God had made.  
He said to the woman, "Did God really say,  
'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"

** GENESIS 3:1 **

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**T W O**

_the tree_

 

**1.**

There was a smallish meadow just a little bit away from the backyard, all green and yellow and warm in the sun. It was sheltered by the apple tree growing at the edge of their property, and before the harvest, no one went there. Sansa doubted that her brothers and sister even knew about it, and her parents were always far too busy during the day to venture much further than the barn. It was the only place on their land where Sansa could be entirely alone, and during every other year of her life, she was.

Every year, until the summer she turned seventeen.

 

 

 

 

**2.**

Lysa and Robin turned out to be a blessing that Mother and Father hadn't expected. Mr. Baelish would often disappear, sometimes for days at a time, leaving his wife and stepson to keep up the land he had purchased. With extra people, the property was much easier to manage, and after a few weeks, Mother seemed almost grateful to have them around. Since they had to let go of all of the farmhands during the last year and Robb and Jon left to make their own way, Sansa's parents had been handling much of the work themselves, Sansa, Arya, and Bran only being able to take on so much.

Still, although Lysa was a help during the day, Sansa still dreaded the nights that she would join them for dinner, or invite them over to her house. On most of these occasions, it was only her and Robin, and she spent the evening alternately gushing about how wonderful her child was and scolding him for something he had done. On the nights that her husband ate dinner with them, she could speak only of his virtues, only of how clever he had been before and after the crash ( _unlike some people_ , she would mutter pointedly), only of how he had bought her and Robin such beautiful things.

Sansa would glance down at her hands, permanently darkened with dirt even after washing them, and her dress, patterned with flowers and nice enough, but flimsy and coming apart at a few seams. Her aunt, despite working in the same conditions, was always so immaculate at their dinners, wearing clothing and shoes in the latest fashions. Sansa and her siblings had maybe two pairs of shoes, one for work and one for Sundays, even those falling apart, and they often went barefoot.

Still, like anything else, she grew accustomed to these instances after a while. It was only Lysa's husband that she had trouble adapting to.

His appearance at the farm was erratic, his car leaving early in the morning and often not appearing again until late at night, each time waking Sansa up. On the nights when he was around for dinner, he would leave late afterward, coming back hours, sometimes days, later. His presence, when he was around, seemed to throw everything and everyone off kilter, disrupting the place settings at their meals, the rhythm between his wife and her sister, the routine that all of them had built in his absence.

But the most disconcerting thing of all, Sansa thought, was how he treated her. Though he said almost nothing to her, save a few pleasantries before or after dinner, she could feel something in his stare, something she couldn't have explained to anyone else had she considered doing so. The way he looked at her - if she did not know better, she would have called it obscene.

Yet that was not the worst part about him, his eyes on her, gaze heavy and intent, when he believed no one else was watching.

The worst part was that she _liked_ it.

 

 

 

 

**3.**

On a Sunday in the middle of July, after arriving to service ten minutes late, Petyr Baelish led his family to sit in the row just behind them. The minister, as well as the other members of the congregation, had begun to expect that sort of disturbance by then, and no one turned to watch as they walked up the aisle, entirely oblivious to the disappointed titters coming from the rows surrounding them. Sansa could see Cersei Lannister muttering something to her son, and she flushed, embarrassed to be connected to such people.

All of those idle thoughts flew from her mind, though, when Mr. Baelish sat behind her. She stiffened, back straight against the pew, and stared forward, wary of turning her head even the slightest distance. She was aware, suddenly, of the sheen of sweat at the back of her neck, the strands of red hair that had escaped her braid, damp and sticky on her skin.

She wondered, for a moment, if he noticed these things - if perhaps he was cataloguing her the way she was cataloguing him. She knew, without understanding why, that he was.

Despite how little she had seen of the world, she knew that there was something wrong in the way he looked at her. She had spent her entire life, every week, hearing these rules, these laws given to humanity by God, yet she doubted that he cared much about what God wanted. She doubted that he cared about much of anything, really.

But _she_ should care; she spent her life following what she learned from honoring her father and mother, following what the minister said was true. He was her aunt's husband - she did not think of him as her uncle, and she knew that he did not think of her as a niece - he should not look at her in such a way, and she certainly shouldn't enjoy it. And still. And _still_.

As she sang along to the hymn, the man behind her conspicuously silent, Sansa clutched her necklace in her palm, pressing the golden pendant in until it began to hurt. It was the only luxury she had left, that necklace: anything else of value had been sold. When she opened her hand after the song, the shape of it had molded into her skin, a flawless indentation of the cross.

 

 

 

 

**4.**

She was lying on the grass in late July, hiding instead of working like she should have been. Above her, the apples were growing heavy for the harvest, some green, but some already beginning to change into a light red color, light as her own hair. She had made chains out of the flowers growing around the roots of the trees, chains she'd wear for a day or two, then abandon in the vegetable garden to rot in the soil.

She closed her eyes, lifting her face up toward the sun so that she could see the light even through her eyelids, feel it warm against her bare shoulders, her bare legs as she propped them up on one of the bigger roots of the tree.

Sansa would have fallen asleep like that, the day gone about as it had a thousand other times, if someone had not come into the meadow then.

A voice spoke behind her, calling out her name, and she startled back into reality, scrambling to a seated position as she waited for the lecture that was sure to follow. When she turned, though, it was not her mother or father she was met with, but Lysa's husband.

"Mr. Baelish," she said, standing quickly. She brushed at the front and back of her dress, grass and dirt falling off as she did, and she was ashamed, irrationally, that she should be seen in such a manner.

He surrounded himself with such fine things, after all. How must she look to him, with her clothing so bedraggled that it was nearly falling off of her shoulders, that the hem above her knees was ripped and worn? She wasn't even wearing shoes. She remembered her aunt, all of the pretty, marvelous things she adorned herself with. After dinner the night before, she had allowed Sansa (as Arya was not interested) to try a few pieces of jewelry on herself, and Lysa told her about how her wonderful Petyr had bought them all for her.

A necklace had been cool against her throat, the genuine sapphires decorating the silver chain shining in the light. She had wished so strongly, more than she had wished for anything else before, that someone would think to give something that beautiful to _her_. She had thought, once, that Joffrey could be that person, but for the past month they had scarcely said so much as a word to each other, his mother doing her best to steer him toward a "more suitable" match.

There was a time when her family had been so respected - Sansa could hardly believe how much had changed.

In front of her, Mr. Baelish took a few steps closer, craning his head back to see the top of the apple tree. "Don't worry," he smirked, "I'm not going to get you into any trouble. I was wondering which one of you would find this place."

"You used to come here?"

He smiled, actually smiled, the warmth of his expression overtaking his face. He was wearing only parts of his usual suit, having abandoned his tie and jacket and rolled up the sleeves to his shirt, and he looked so different then. Younger, more vulnerable. Sansa wondered, absently, why he wasn't at work, as he normally was at that hour. "When I was sixteen," he explained, leaning back against the trunk of the tree, "I would come here to do what you're doing now."

"Seventeen, in a week," she corrected him. At his nod of acknowledgement, she cocked her head, feigning innocence as she continued, "And what do you think I'm doing now?"

"Avoiding chores, of course."

Sansa laughed, startled that he had made a joke. "I can't imagine you being my age." His mouth turned down briefly, in confusion, and she clarified, "You hardly ever talk about your childhood. Aunt Lysa is always telling stories about what she did when she was younger."

"I'm sure you've heard some about me then."

"Yes," she said. "But not from you."

He only shrugged, and he looked away as he replied, "There's not much to tell."

For a moment, Sansa was certain she had offended him too deeply, that he would leave and go back to only speaking to her in phrases,  _good evening, hello, thank you_ , that he would stop looking so often at her over the edge of his glass, but he kept talking. "This place is so different from when I was a child. There were so many more people, so much more land, if you can believe it."

Sansa smiled, less at the words themselves than how he seemed to have become lost in them. "And now?"

His glance flickered back to her, and he sounded surprised at her interruption when he spoke. "Now what?"

"Are you regretting your purchase? Regretting saving all of our skins?" Sansa looked beyond the meadow to the house, in all its diminished glory. She was all too conscious of her appearance, all too certain of the fact that he noticed everything about it. "This place isn't as grand as you remembered it to be."

"No," he agreed. He took another step forward, close enough that Sansa could see the stray thread at his collar, the tic in his jaw as he ran his eyes over her. "It's _better_."

 

 

 

 

**5.**

She couldn't sleep. After Petyr - and the name is too familiar, she shouldn't call him that, even in her head - after Petyr left close to midnight, she was unable to drift off again, feeling restless from the heat.

With a groan of annoyance, she kicked the blankets off, so that only the thin material of her nightgown covered her. Already it was cooler, but it wasn't enough to help her fall asleep again. Arya had been out for hours, always able to snore through anything - even, once, a tree crashing to the ground just outside - as long as it did not physically disturb her. Sansa envied that ability, but she was always more sensitive to the world than her sister.

Sansa attempted all of her usual methods of relaxation, but by three in the morning, when none had worked, she realized she had to resort to the only other way she knew worked of helping to fall asleep.

Carefully, slowly, she ran her left hand down to the hem of her gown, hitching it up so that the end of it rested on her stomach. She slid her other hand beneath her undergarments, between her legs.

She let out a sigh of relief as she touched herself, closing her eyes and letting her mind go blank. Once in a while, she thought of Joffrey, his nice hands, his blue eyes. She remembered the pulp magazine she had found once on the road up to church, how she had hidden it in the weeds to look at later, how she had wondered if one day a man might want her in such a way as the hero seemed to want the heroine.

Her hand moved faster, her breath becoming shallow as she neared her goal.

All of those things flew from her mind, though, at the sound of a car moving down the road outside. Sansa hesitated, eyes open again, her ministrations halting as she listened to the engine cutting off, the door opening and closing. Petyr was outside, only just a short walk away from her. The window, she knew, had been opened to the breeze earlier; there was nothing stopping him from seeing her if he happened to pass by the house.

Yet instead of stopping, Sansa wanted to continue more than ever. She could feel herself, the slick wet of her fingers: she _needed_ to finish what she had started. And as she began again her mind drifted in another direction entirely.

She remembered how Petyr gazed at her, how his eyes were hot on her skin, enough that she wanted to hide from them even as she savored every moment he stared. She couldn't ignore it. She could hardly think of anything else. She had only ever met a few men, and none of them had ever looked at her the way Petyr did.

She imagined that his eyes were on her now - that he was watching her writhe around on her sheets, one hand clutching at her headboard. Her breath stuttered in her throat as she slid a finger into herself, and suddenly she pictured something better. She imagined that he was the one touching her, that it was his fingers curling into her, his hand rubbing fast and hard between her legs, his breath catching as her back arched off the bed.

She could almost hear his voice encouraging her, low and rough as sandpaper, how he would murmur into her ear as he helped her along. She finished then, shaking apart as she felt a wave of pleasure wash over her, her mouth open though no sound came out.

He was only just outside; she wondered what he would do if he knew.

 

 

 

 

**6.**

She could hardly bear to meet his eyes at dinner. It did not matter much, really, it wasn't as if they spoke a great deal when anyone else could see, and Sansa's family, as well as Lysa and Robin, were too wrapped up in their own lives to notice anything off about the way she reacted to Mr. Baelish.

Every time he glanced in her direction, every time he asked her to pass him something on the table, she flushed, a shiver running through her body at his voice. If he knew anything about what she had done - while thinking of him, no less - he didn't show it in anything more than a slight smirk at her nerves, a lazy sort of amusement in his tone as he addressed her.

"Goodnight, Mr. Baelish," she said after the meal, and instead of repeating the sentiment as usual he tilted his head to the side.

"No need for such formalities, Sansa," he said, and at his right Lysa drew back, her face twisting in anger for half a moment before she smoothed it out again. Sansa could feel her own parents' tension coming from just behind her, but she ignored it, unable to look away. She recalled the speed of her mother's reply about whether they could trust Petyr Baelish, but she couldn't make it mean something to her at that moment.

"You can call me Petyr," he said, and smiled.

 

 

 

 

**7.**

The second time she saw him in the meadow, Petyr sat down beside her on the roots of the tree. It was afternoon, the sun already casting long shadows, but it was still hot as anything out of the shade. He had once again abandoned his jacket and tie, and without that armor he seemed smaller, less intimidating.

So much so, that she wasn't afraid to turn to him and ask, much too bold in her questioning, "Where do you go when you leave?"

To her surprise, he huffed out a laugh. "I didn't expect you to say that." When Sansa's only response was a raised eyebrow, he replied, "I have a vested interest in a number of businesses in the city. They require my constant care and attention."

"One could say the same thing about your wife," she pointed out.

"Yes," he smirked, "I suppose one could. But my work keeps food on the table and keeps her and Robin in all the finery they could possibly desire. I have a feeling she would prefer that over a more constant presence."

For a moment, Sansa considered this. For all of the cynicism his response implied, particularly about his marriage, he was probably right.

"Wait," she said, suddenly realizing something. "What did you think I was going to say?"

"Nothing in particular," he said, his expression unreadable. He reached toward her, and Sansa froze, but all he did was pick an apple up from where it had fallen off of the tree and rolled to her feet. He held it in his hand, dusting off the dirt that still clung to its red skin. "You know," he mused, "we used to have a trick when we wanted to know if these were good to eat, but I can't really remember it anymore." His hand moved closer to her, as if asking her to show him the right way to figure out the fruit.

Without thinking, Sansa grabbed at the back of his hand, ducking her head to take a bite from the apple as she held him in place. When she looked up again, swallowing down the piece she had eaten, he was staring at her, his eyes black, his expression almost like that of a starving man. His fingers twitched underneath hers, a tremor of the nerves. With her other hand, she wiped off the juice that ran down her chin.

"This one's good," she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

 

 

 

 

 


	3. the wild animals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am still very delicate about the most recent episode so!!! SO IT'S FINE I'M WHATEVER I DON'T I DON'T I DON'T CARE!!! here, have some alternate universe petyr/sansa CONSENSUAL sex, hope it heals some of the indignity that was unbowed, unbent, unbroken
> 
> i will delete this note later probably, i just needed to work out my feelings in a healthy way it's fine i may stop watching this show!!! it depends. luckily that has never stopped me from writing fic before as evidenced by many things i have written on here

 

 

 

How wide the world is. How high. And the stuff of the  
mind -- charged, poofs and scatters like seed and fluff. For  
such is the tooth of the lion. That it bares and bursts into  
wishes.

A wish for a certain thing  
or just the wish to know.

** PATTI SMITH **

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**T H R E E**

_the wild animals_

 

**1.**

In the fields beyond their fields were the most beautiful flowers. When she was younger, her father would take her on walks on the land, and he would let her pick the plants that grew at the edge, close to where the trees grew taller and close together. He knew all of their names, those flowers, and he knew which ones could be eaten, which ones grew berries that she should never swallow, which ones looked the prettiest in her hair.

When she was eleven, she wandered off into those fields by herself at night, determined to make a necklace of violets and daisies. Her mother had the most beautiful necklaces then, with emerald pendants, golden chains, that glittered and glowed in the sunlight, but Sansa was much too little for jewelry, she said. She decided to make her own.

But when she got to the place where her father had taken her, she discovered that the plants, the ferns, the weeds, the flowers had been trampled, crushed underfoot. In the dirt surrounding them were paw prints, much larger than Lady's. In the woods, there was a wolf running free, and she could hear it as it howled at the moon.

She gathered the rest of the crumpled daisies and made them into a wreath - a crown to adorn her beautiful, red hair.

 

 

 

 

**2.**

She turned seventeen in early August, on one of the hottest days of the year. It was unbearable, that heat, oppressive and unflinching, burning all of them while they went about their work. As she weeded the garden, Sansa could feel her shoulders turning red, the skin peeling wherever the sun landed on her. She wanted to retreat to the meadow, sit in the shade of the tree, eat the apples that had fallen to the ground, but Aunt Lysa was with her and would notice if she suddenly left.

Petyr was there too, but in his house, presumably drowning in work. He hadn't left in the morning, she knew, though no one had seen him all day. The car sat idle on the path, shiny and expensive-looking and almost absurdly distinct among the wooden houses, the trees, the dirt road.

It was a ridiculous thought, most certainly a foolish one, but she wondered if maybe he had stayed for her birthday. He had been at dinner almost every night in the last week, and he was even there at the tree on some afternoons, sitting with her on the roots, leaning against the trunk, showing her how to juggle apples. He told her, once, about how he had carved his initials on one of the uppermost branches, a signifier that he had existed once, that he too had worked the land, that he mattered to the earth he had grown up on.

His hands were smooth, but the longer she looked, the better she could see the faint history of him. Callouses that had worn away with age still lingering under the skin, waiting for the time when they would be of use again. The almost imperceivable shake of his fingers as she held them in her grasp, as if he were unused to touch.

He was so different from moment to moment, from person to person, that she hardly knew what to make of him. There was something wrong about him, she knew, but horribly, treacherously, it didn't bother her like it should have.

She did her work, went to dinner, sat in church like always, but no one knew she was only waiting. Waiting to hear him saunter into the room, waiting to feel his fingers skimming against her arm like it was an accident, waiting to watch the  _wrongness_  watching her watching him watching her watching him watching watching watching -

Shame, guilt - she was intimately acquainted with both, had been since birth. Yet neither seemed to matter much anymore.  _Nice girls,_  the minister said, her father said, her mother said, _like nice boys_. He sure as hell wasn't a nice boy.

And for the first time, Sansa imagined she might not be such a nice girl.

In the air, she could feel the wind, weak as it was, cooling the sweat gathered on her brow, her palms, her back. She could hear the sounds of the world moving around her, Aunt Lysa ripping vegetables from their plants, Arya whistling as she gathered the eggs from the chicken coop, the crickets singing, singing, herself singing, singing. Above her, the sun was beating down - unceasingly, unyieldingly down.

 

 

 

 

**3.**

"I have something for you. For your birthday."

In the morning, Petyr stood beside her behind the house, still in his suit from dinner the night before. It was early, only just dawn, and she had heard his car pull onto the road only minutes before he found her at the back porch.

He looked tired, more so than usual, but he smiled at her as he proffered the gift.

"A late present," she teased, glancing up at him as she took the box. "You forgot me, didn't you?" Her gifts from her family had been modest but lovely. Embroidery from Arya (who complained about the dull nature of the work even as she gave it), a crown of flowers from Bran and Rickon, and a book from Mother and Father as well as the lemon cakes for dessert.

She had been disappointed at the lack of a gift from Lysa, but unsurprised. In the last week, her aunt had been considerably colder to her.

"On the contrary," Petyr said. "I had it yesterday. I just didn't want to show everyone up." He smirked, pleased with himself, and Sansa rolled her eyes as she tipped open the lid.

All of the responses she had ready died in her throat, though, when she saw the necklace nestled in the velvet. It was gold, with a teardrop-shaped ruby that could only have been genuine dangling off the chain, and it was still so delicate, so light in her palm as she held it. Even with her limited knowledge of the price of jewelry, she knew it was far too much for someone like her. Yet rather than insisting he take it back like she should have, she only stared in wonder at this thing that cost more than any other object she had ever owned.

It was for _her_. She knew, suddenly, why he hadn't given his present at dinner, with everyone around.

Petyr was silent, staring intently at her as if gauging her reaction, as if willing her to speak. Rather than reply, Sansa handed him the necklace, smiling slightly at the way his eyes widened. She turned around, lifting her hair off of her back as she did.

She could feel the heat of his body as he moved closer to her, feel his breath on her skin as he put the chain against her collarbone. The pendant fell to just above her breast, where it could be hidden underneath her clothes. She turned around again before he moved entirely away, her hair falling back into place as she dropped her hands.

"Thank you," she murmured, and, on some unexplainable whim, leaned forward and kissed him.

It was only a brief touch, and it could have easily been written off as innocent. She pulled away a moment later, rocking back on her heels. For a beat, he did nothing, his eyes moving fast over her face, his brow furrowed as if in concentration. Yet it was only another instant before he came to a decision.

He pressed forward, catching her lips with his. At first it was as it was before, soft and chaste, but soon he was leaning more heavily into her, and she was responding in kind, dancing her fingers against his temple. He tangled a hand in her hair as he deepened the kiss she started, his mouth slanting over hers, open and desperate and _hungry_ , and she realized, terribly, that she was hungry, too.

She felt, unreasonably, that he was burning her, his skin searing her skin, his tongue hot against her tongue, his hands, with those callouses still underneath, the old reflexes still in the muscles, in the bones, roaming over her back, over her waist, over her neck, trying to spread the fire.

She did not know what else might have happened had he not suddenly come to his senses and pushed her away again. He held her gently at the shoulders, but he quickly realized that mistake and stepped back from her completely. He looked around, searching for witnesses, and, satisfied they had not been seen, he exhaled, running a hand over his face.

Petyr muttered something to himself, a word that sounded like "careless," and then he was bidding her goodbye, telling her he needed to get some work done, and she was alone, with nothing left to say what had occurred save the swollen feeling of her lips, the ruby necklace hidden under her dress.

 

 

 

 

**4.**

It happened again. It happened again and kept happening. They talked as before, yet when alone the conversation always circled, always led back around to his mouth on hers.

Usually it was innocent enough, only a peck before he got up to leave, her eyelids falling shut for half a heartbeat, her forearms against his chest, and then he was gone again. Sometimes it wasn't, and he pulled her tight against him, the kiss harsh and open-mouthed, her legs draped over his lap, his hands clenching her dress, dragging the material up until she was nearly indecent. It was those occasions that she thought about later, at dinner when he glanced at her across the table, at midnight when she listened to his car leaving.

She knew the rules, she knew the words (she knew what it meant _thou shalt not commit adultery_ ), but it didn't matter to her. She didn't know if it ever had.

It was almost unreal, the way everything that summer had been almost unreal. Every time he was with her, Sansa found herself thinking that there would come a day when one of two things would happen. The first was that he would stop, that he would take their unspoken agreement not to discuss what they were doing as permission to end it without warning. The second was that he would one day ask for more.

Each was terrifying in its own way, yet of the two paths that stretched out before her, she knew which she would choose.

It was on a Sunday that she learned the answer. They were in the shade of the tree, lying back against the grass, and Petyr was not kissing her neck so much as laughing against her skin.

"You're telling me," he said between amused chuckles, "that there was a wolf in the woods, and you still picked all of the flowers before you ran back home?"

Sansa smiled, pulling her fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck. "I'm very brave. And besides, everyone knows you have to suffer for anything really beautiful."

"I don't know." His hand dropped from her waist to her thigh, pulling her dress up as it moved along her body. She gasped as he brushed her hip, remembering that she was wearing nothing under her clothes, that she was as immodest as could be. "I don't think I've suffered at all for this."

Rather than guiding his wrist toward another direction, though, for the first time Sansa allowed him to move as he wished, wanting to see what he would do, wanting to feel everything. She closed her eyes, breath catching in anticipation, and she felt his touch first at her throat, undoing the top buttons of her collar until she could sense the cool air against her neck. Then, even better, even worse, his fingers grazed between her thighs, sliding up to where she burned, where his own breath stuttered as he felt her, hot and wanting, against his hand.

She opened her eyes to find him looking at her, his gaze clouded, expression nearly wild. She tipped her head forward, the beginning of a nod, and she grasped at his shoulder as his hand started to move.

He began slowly, agonizingly so, the fingers of his other hand gripping her side so harshly they must have been leaving bruises. Soon, though, he picked up speed, not letting up until she was rolling her hips underneath him, chasing her release. She made a small noise of frustration when he slowed again, digging her nails into his shoulder to urge him on.

He ignored her, instead bringing his lips close to her ear. He was steady against her, a shuddering intake of breath the only indication that he was being affected at all. "Do you touch yourself like this?" he murmured. "When you're alone, in your room?"

She jerked her head up, and, when his hand pressed hard against her sex again, demanding a better response, choked out, "Yes."

"And what do you think of, Sansa? Do you think of the Lannister boy?"

She shook her head, a shiver running through her body.

"No? Who then?" He was holding her hip, keeping her in place as he worked her into a frenzy, and as he leaned over Sansa could see his hair falling out of its style, sweat collecting on his forehead. "Who do you think of?"

Her eyes fluttered shut, her fingers closing into a fist on the grass. "Petyr," she gasped, and at the hesitation in his movements, the stutter in his rhythm, she repeated herself, again, again. Until the name was falling from her lips as if a chant, a song, a supplication, until his touch was frantic, until her muscles clenched around him and the word was less a word than a cry of relief.

Then, as her body relaxed again, he let go of her, the dress falling back into place, the warmth of him abruptly absent.

Sansa raised herself into a sitting position, her knees bent, searching his face as he watched her, unsure of what she was trying to find. He seemed nearly as undone as she was, his expression torn between desire and uncertainty.

She opened her mouth, about to speak despite not knowing what to say, when the sentence she hadn't prepared was interrupted before it even began.

Petyr was looking past her, his eyes wide and nervous, but his smile as amiable as always. "Rickon," he said.

Sansa whipped around, panicked, and sure enough her younger brother was standing at the tree, observing them with a blank stare. She knew her hair was hopelessly chaotic, the buttons of her shirt open, showing that she wasn't wearing her cross as she should have been on Sunday, but instead the necklace that Petyr had given her.

Rickon, still only a child, was entirely oblivious to what had happened.

"Arya says it's your turn with the chickens and she knows it was you that stole her book from the dresser," he rattled off, his voice high and breathless as he repeated the sentence, most certainly exactly as Arya had ordered him to.

"Okay," Sansa said, standing shakily to her feet. She took her brother's hand, ignoring the fact that she needed to get the grass stains off her dress, ignoring how incautious they had been this close to harvest, ignoring everything that just happened for the moment. "Let's go find her, okay?"

She walked away, leaving Petyr still in the meadow, hoping that he, at least, would have time to catch his breath.

 

 

 

 

**5.**

She waited until she could hear it for the second time. As she listened to the engine, a distant, dull roar, she tiptoed from her bed, from her room, avoiding every creaky floorboard, closing each and every door carefully, carefully behind her. By the time she made it outside, his car was almost stopped, pulling into the pathway.

Sansa ran to the other house, the wheat stalks stinging her legs in thin strips, and her feet did not hit the ground so much as skim over it, as if she were about to take flight. She reached him just as he was stepping out of the automobile, and she stopped a few paces away. He saw her, she knew. He saw her, and he was waiting like she had been waiting.

Without warning, she set off past his house, in the direction of the fields. She listened as the car door closed, and though she didn't turn back to see, she knew, beyond any doubt, that he was following her.

She walked forward, not knowing why, the only thing illuminating the way the light of the moon, the light of the stars. In the middle of the field she stopped, and as she looked ahead she could see the faint outline of the apple tree. Behind, she knew, was her house, her family. Behind her was Petyr. All around, the air was dry, the heat crackling against the grass, ready to ignite at the slightest spark. This time of year was dangerous, her mother always warned, for anything living.

It was only another minute before he reached her, but the moment stretched out, lingering, and she tilted her head up to watch the sky overhead.

"Sansa," he called, and she turned, finding where he stood a few yards away. He was so still, then, his posture loose like it hardly ever was, his hair mussed. He didn't ask why she wasn't asleep; he already knew. He already knew everything about her.

He closed the distance in a few paces, and then he was on her - or she was on him, she could hardly tell. He kissed her roughly, his arms were wrapped tight around her body, as if afraid she might push him away. Yet rather than feeling suffocated, she felt freer in his grip, knowing as she did that all it took was a tap on his jaw, a word muttered into his mouth, and he would waver like a reed in the wind.

Almost at once, they were on the ground, uncaring of the dirt that was sure to cling to her nightgown, unmindful of the grass that could mark his beautiful suit, and for the first time, she was underneath a man, pressed back into the earth and yet not smothered. His weight on her was unusual but satisfying, an odd comfort she hadn't expected.

Soon, he had rid her of her gown, inhaling sharply at how she was bare underneath, all of her skin revealed to him. Her fingers worked quickly over the buttons of his expensive jacket, pulling loose his silk tie, undoing his clean, white shirt, his clean, black slacks, his clean, black shoes, and she relished the way each dropped carelessly in the dirt beside them, the way she could so easily make him abandon the things he was so proud of.

His mouth was everywhere, pressing kisses to her mouth, her throat, her breasts, and in return she ran her fingers along his shoulder blades, through the hair at his temples, over the line of his jaw, over the scar that decorated his chest. She could feel him, hard and hot against her stomach, and even as it was something she was nearly terrified of, how he would enter her, make her stretch and ache, there was a strange pleasure in feeling the evidence of his desire, proof that he could be unraveled the same way he had unraveled her earlier in the day. When his hand drifted to between her legs, she spread them, nearly laughing at his groan when he found her already slick, wet.

"It's going to hurt," he said as he readied himself, his tone matter-of-fact rather than apologetic. Then, as if he realized his error, he brought a hand up to her face, his eyes softening slightly. "I'll go slow, okay?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice. When he slid inside of her, when he filled her, she gasped in pain, her toes curling, fingers clenching tightly at his shoulders, eyes squeezing shut. After another moment, it subsided, and as he began to move she relaxed by degrees.

He was slow, as he promised, firm and deliberate as he rocked further in and pulled back out, and as he pressed inside of her he muttered words almost unconsciously, _you're so good, you're so tight, Christ, yes, fuck, fuck, fuck_. With each passing second she could feel some of the same spark that she felt before, when she had shuddered into pieces under his sure, steady hand. After a few minutes, she began to move with him, undulating her hips so that she met each push forward with a push of her own.

He groaned against her shoulder, his pace quickening, growing erratic, the restraint that he was only barely grasping at before slipping away entirely, and as he moved his hand came between them, finding where they were connected and rubbing hard circles against her sex.

She could hear his breath catching near her neck, a word repeated as he touched her. At her breaking point, she suddenly understood the sibilant hiss, said over and over,  _Sansa, Sansa, Sansa_. She shook beneath him, going still as she let out a cry that was in the shape of his name. Soon after, he followed her over the edge of the same cliff, pulling out and spilling himself over the skin of her stomach.

They were both breathing hard as they came back to themselves, both staring at the other - Petyr on his knees, Sansa on her back - yet neither of them in control any longer. Neither of them able to say for sure who had been in control in the first place.

And both of them not saying a word.

 

 

 

 

She washed her clothes, washed her skin with the water of the well. She wiped the blood from her inner thighs, the dried seed from her stomach, the streaks of red earth from her back. She scrubbed her dress until the grass stains were gone, the flowers underneath faded from the force of her efforts. Once she was clean, as pure on the outside as she knew she no longer was on the inside, she ran quickly back to her house, unsure of how long it would be before she was meant to be awake.

There was nothing in the sky to guide her but the light of the moon, the light of the stars, the fast-approaching dawn.

 

 

 

 

**6.**

The first thing was a scream. The second thing was the slam of a door, steps heavy against the earth, a car engine starting. The third thing was Lysa running into the garden, her eyes wild, her mouth contorted into a grimace as she glared at Sansa.

"I knew it," she said, her voice low and vicious, and as she advanced, Sansa found herself backing up instinctively, nearly tripping over the roots of the plants. "I knew you would try to steal him away from me. I knew you would trick him, you whore, you harlot."

"Aunt Lysa, I don't -"

"Don't lie!" she barked. "Rickon saw the two of you together, alone, I could tell the moment he entered our bedroom. I _told_ your mother, I warned her of your wickedness, but she would not listen."

"Sansa?" Her mother's voice rang out from the house, her tone confused, worried. "What's going on?"

At the interruption, Sansa tried to pass her aunt, but Lysa reached, her hand darting out and closing fast around Sansa's wrist like a snake, holding her there. Sansa struggled in her grip, more so when her mother suddenly came upon them, but Lysa ignored her sister and her niece.

"I know you fucked him," she snarled. "I know you want him for yourself. Selfish, I always saw it, just like Cat. You even look like her."

"Sansa," Mother repeated, but this time she said it hopelessly, fearful. "Oh, God."

"Let me go!" Sansa nearly screamed, at last wrenching herself from Lysa's grasp. She stumbled back a step from the force of it, tears pricking at her eyes as she looked down at the bruises beginning to pattern her thin wrist, at the way her mother was staring at her with so much disappointment, as if she were already lost. Somewhere in all of the commotion, the rest of her family had appeared, and they stared in stunned quiet at what was unfolding before them.

The car engine had stopped, but she barely noticed.

"Tell me it isn't true, Sansa," Mother whispered. At the silence her daughter offered, she turned suddenly away, bringing her hand up to her head. "Oh God, oh God," she said, "he's _ruined_ you."

Father snapped out of his confusion, his face hardening into a steely resolve. "I'm going to kill that son of a bitch," he said evenly, almost normally, and he set off in the direction of the road, moving with all the terrible grace of a bear. Mother followed quickly behind, grabbing at his arm, calling _Ned, Ned, don't, it's already done, it's already done,_ and even as she spoke Lysa was still screeching, accusing, _harlot, tramp, slut, whore_.

"Stop," Sansa called suddenly, her voice pitched at a shriek, and finally everyone paused, turning back to look at her. "No, don't, he didn't ruin me, he didn't, I ruined myself. I would have been ruined even if they had not come here." She did not know until she said the words that it was true, but as they remained suspended in the air, she knew she was being more honest than she had been in years.

Her mother believed Petyr to be the thing which had brought about her destruction, but Sansa knew he was only a match, only a well-timed match - she was kindling all by herself. Perhaps with anyone else she would not have caught and cackled into flame at all, but she could not regret that she had. It was always meant for her to be set alight, to burn alive in brilliant glory; it was written all over her body, in the red of her hair.

"Let me go," she said.

 

 

 

 

**7.**

She walked along the road to where the car idled, rocks digging painfully into her bare soles, dust swirling around her ankles as it was kicked up. She felt it as it clung to her pristine skin, could feel as it stained her, dirtied her. She could not look behind, to where her family watched her progress helplessly. If she looked back, then she would be lost, and there was nothing there for her, nothing but the near-empty house, the burning sun, the stinging wind. Nothing but the place where her family could only wither away, until nothing of any of them was left. Until nothing of her was left but her name, her virtue, the things that could no longer sway the world as they once had. There was nothing for her there, no money, no dignity, no kindness - nothing but the road ahead and the man who waited at the end of it.

In her hands, on her body, she carried all that mattered to her - her birthday presents, her dresses, her shoes, her ruby necklace - all wrapped in the white, embroidered curtains from her room.

Sansa followed the uphill curve of the path until she reached the car, and then she climbed inside.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
